A video doing the rounds on Chinese social media these days has gone viral for showing how easy it is to use AI-powered deepfake technology to transform into virtually anyone online.
App filters and deepfake technology have been around for years now, but the advent of artificial intelligence has elevated them to a whole new level, one which makes it almost impossible to tell what is real on the internet. Take this recent video shared by a Chinese engineer where he demonstrates how easy it is for him to pass as an attractive young girl. All he has to do is put on a wig, enable a piece of software and the AI takes care of the rest. It is able to replace the man’s face with that of an attractive girl but otherwise mimics all of his actions, including eating with chopsticks, pinching his own face, and speaking with the appropriate mouth movement.
The video is at the same time impressive and terrifying, as it shows just how easy it is for someone to pass as somebody else. Although the engineer himself admits that the software isn’t perfect, I for one struggle to find any flaws. Some users have pointed out that while his face is transformed into that of a young woman, his hands aren’t as slender as delicate as they should be, but I did not pay attention to that detail at all.
“Who will dare to believe their eyes in the future?” one Twitter user commented on the video.
我发誓不当榜一大哥了……
via 大大于面 pic.twitter.com/rv4KCDRFcD— Geek (@geekbb) April 23, 2024
The male engineer explained that some details, like eyeball movements, still need perfecting, but it is clear that deepfake technology has evolved immensely thanks to artificial intelligence.